A Quick Nick Franklin Primer for Mets Fans

If you only wanted to read one sentence about Nick Franklin, a player who may be available for trade and end up with the Mets, here you go:

Nick is a soon to be 23 year old 2B/SS prospect (ranged from top tier in 2012 to still top 100ish this year) who at the very best has a ceiling to hit 20 homers and steal 20 bases in a season.

For those of you who would like more context:

Nick Franklin played his first season of professional ball in 2009 in the same year he was drafted as the 27th overall pick. Over the years he has faced some freak injuries (for example, being hit in the face with a bat) which caused him to lose some playing time. He has the potential to steal bases and has moderate power. However the power can be seen as above average since plays middle infield. Originally slated to be a short stop, he has been playing both and is currently, possibly, out of a job in Seattle as Cano now resides at second and Miller also holding short stop.

As for his power, in 2010 he slugged 23 homers, followed by 7 in 2011 (the year he got hit with a bat) and 11 in 2012. He hit 4 homers in the minors in 2013 and hit an additional 12 in the majors. His minor league batting average was fairly consistent hitting .283, .281 and .278 from 2010-2012 (he hit .333 in 2009, but it was also a small sample size of 63 AB’s) and then he hit .324 over 142 AB’s in 2013 before being called up. The majors were tougher where he hit only .225.

Back in 2012, MLB.com considered him the #29 overall prospect, the #4 shortstop prospect and the #3 Mariner prospect. This same list has d’Arnaud at #11, Bundy at #2, Walker at #4, Bogarts at #31, Syndergaard at #83 and Wheeler at #6. In 2011 he was #23 on that same list which had Harvey at #45.

In the end he will probably cost one or two midlevel prospects that are close to major league ready. Names that have been floating around on the internet include Montero, Black and deGrom. This would be a situation where the Mets would like it to be more like a player like deGrom, but that might be a little low for Franklin. I keep going back and forth whether I would like to trade for Franklin. I wrote an article recently that said I would be against deGrom for Franklin, but I take that back now that I’ve educated myself more on Franklin. However, now that I have educated myself more on Franklin, I don’t think deGrom will be enough.

In the end I personally struggle with trading away pitching. So do a lot of teams. Which is why the Mets never found a match for Ike Davis or Lucas Duda this off-season.